Renovated registry office to ease integration of Chechen refugees

Newly trained staff with their modern computers serve customers at the renovated CRA office in Ahkmeta.

AKHMETA, Georgia, September 14 (UNHCR) – At some time in their life, everyone needs legal documentation, ranging from birth and marriage certificates to an ID card or a passport. In Georgia, that means going to the Civil Registry Agency (CRA).

But years of neglect and insufficient funding had left the busy CRA branch office in the north-east Georgia town of Akhmeta in poor shape, and this was affecting its ability to serve the local population, including refugees from Chechnya living in the region's Pankisi Gorge.

"Our office was built in 1946, Soviet style, and it was in a bad state. Customers waited in a drafty cold corridor; employees sat in cramped cubicles," Levan Itiuridze, head of Akhmeta office, told UNHCR visitors.

The working conditions were abysmal – freezing cold in winter and boiling hot in summer – and the equipment and facilities were antiquated. As a result, staff members were only able to handle about 15 customers a day, turning away a further 15-20.

In July last year, as part of a strategy to ease the local integration of Chechen refugees in the Pankisi and to help build the capacity of local civil servants, UNHCR funded the renovation of the branch office. The facility reopened in late August and the transformation was remarkable.

Not only has the building been renovated, but the office has been equipped with a state of the art computerized registration system connected to the Justice Ministry in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi. Before, all applications and correspondence between the ministry and Akhmeta had to be sent by road.

CRA staff in the town can now access the Justice Ministry's main computer immediately, register an applicant's details and print out the necessary documents. "The service is great now," said Koki Peradze, head of UNHCR's Akhmeta office. "If I need to renew my passport, all I have to do is go to the CRA branch office here in Akhmeta," added Peradze, a Georgian citizen.

Training of staff by UNHCR, as part of a general capacity-building strategy, was a vital component of the project, "We received training on how to improve our customer service, how to answer all the different questions, how to keep calm under pressure and how to achieve better results with the computerized system," said documentation specialist, Manana Khokhobashvili. The centre can now handle 40 customers a day.

While the civil registry caters mostly to locals, it is also very important to the nearly 1,000 refugees from Chechnya who remain in the region. They were among some 8,000 who fled across the nearby border in 1999 to escape conflict in their corner of the Russian Federation.

Most of these 8,000 either returned to Chechnya or moved to Western Europe, but those who remain in the Pankisi Gorge are being gradually integrated into the local community with the help of UNHCR. This means they need documents, which is where the Akhmeta centre plays a crucial role.

They can apply for the all-important birth certificates for children born in Georgia and for marriage certificates for couples tying the knot with other refugees or locals. And since April last year, the refugees have been able to apply at the CRA for special travel documents which allow them to go overseas for education, training or employment and to visit relatives.

And with the government now offering citizenship to the refugees, the CRA branch in
Akhmeta is even busier processing applications for documents and issuing national ID cards.

The renovation work has been warmly welcomed by the Chechens. "You can't compare how it was before and how it is now. And I am not talking about nice walls and floors, but also about the service, which has also improved a lot," said Fatima Bagakhashvili.

Helping to build capacity among staff in government and non-governmental organizations is a major element of UNHCR's work in Georgia. Funds permitting, the refugee agency hopes to train staff in four more CRA offices in areas hosting nearly 250,000 forcibly displaced Georgians and 1,700 stateless people.

Displacement in Georgia

Tens of thousands of civilians are living in precarious conditions, having been driven from their homes by the crisis in the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia.

On the morning of August 12, the first UNHCR-chartered plane carrying emergency aid arrived in the Georgian capital Tbilisi, the first UN assistance to arrive in the country since fighting broke out the previous week. The airlift brought in 34 tonnes of tents, jerry cans, blankets and kitchen sets from UNHCR's central emergency stockpile in Dubai. Items were then loaded onto trucks at the Tbilisi airport for transport and distribution.

A second UNHCR flight landed in Tbilisi on August 14, with a third one expected to arrive the following day. In addition, two UNHCR aid flights are scheduled to leave for Vladikavkaz in the Russian Federation the following week with mattresses, water tanks and other supplies for displaced South Ossetians.

Working with local partners, UNHCR is now providing assistance to the most vulnerable and needy. These include many young children and family members separated from one another. The situation is evolving rapidly and the refugee agency is monitoring the needs of the newly displaced population, which numbered some 115,000 on August 14.

Posted on 15 August 2008

Displacement in Georgia

Iraqi Children Go To School in Syria

UNHCR aims to help 25,000 refugee children go to school in Syria by providing financial assistance to families and donating school uniforms and supplies.

There are some 1.4 million Iraqi refugees living in Syria, most having fled the extreme sectarian violence sparked by the bombing of the Golden Mosque of Samarra in 2006.

Many Iraqi refugee parents regard education as a top priority, equal in importance to security. While in Iraq, violence and displacement made it difficult for refugee children to attend school with any regularity and many fell behind. Although education is free in Syria, fees associated with uniforms, supplies and transportation make attending school impossible. And far too many refugee children have to work to support their families instead of attending school.

To encourage poor Iraqi families to register their children, UNHCR plans to provide financial assistance to at least 25,000 school-age children, and to provide uniforms, books and school supplies to Iraqi refugees registered with UNHCR. The agency will also advise refugees of their right to send their children to school, and will support NGO programmes for working children.

UNHCR's ninemillion campaign aims to provide a healthy and safe learning environment for nine million refugee children by 2010.

Iraqi Children Go To School in Syria

A Place to Call Home(Part 2): 1996 - 2003

This gallery highlights the history of UNHCR's efforts to help some of the world's most disenfranchised people to find a place called home, whether through repatriation, resettlement or local integration.

After decades of hospitality after World War II, as the global political climate changed and the number of people cared for by UNHCR swelled from around one million in 1951, to more than 27 million people in the mid-1990s, the welcome mat for refugees was largely withdrawn.

Voluntary repatriation has become both the preferred and only practical solution for today's refugees. In fact, the great majority of them choose to return to their former homes, though for those who cannot do so for various reasons, resettlement in countries like the United States and Australia, and local integration within regions where they first sought asylum, remain important options.

This gallery sees Rwandans returning home after the 1994 genocide; returnees to Kosovo receiving reintegration assistance; Guatemalans obtaining land titles in Mexico; and Afghans flocking home in 2003 after decades in exile.

A Place to Call Home(Part 2): 1996 - 2003

Too Much Pain: The Voices of Refugee Women, part 1/6

Stories of refugee women who have undergone Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and are engaged to end this practice. These women explain their experiences of flight, asylum and integration in the EU.

Georgia: Hope at last

For more than 16 years those displaced by the Georgia-Abkhaz conflict lived in destitution. Now, for the first time in years, they have real hope for the future.

Georgia: More than Summer Camp

A UNHCR-sponsored camp near the Georgian town of Gori helps youth displaced by last year's war regain self-confidence and independence.